Wednesday, September 24, 2008

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

By Steven J. Talrechi


Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money on the internet today. Everyone from the gurus to the wannabe gurus uses affiliate marketing to promote their business or to make some quick cash. While you may have heard of it, it still might not make sense to you. This is completely alright. You are definitely not alone. Many people don't realize the power of affiliate marketing or what it is exactly. So what exactly is affiliate marketing? Let's look at it a little more in depth.

It is very simple to understand affiliate marketing. Imagine that you are looking for some customer for one of your new products. You are very sure about the utility of the product and equally sure that once people know about it, it will sell like hot cakes. You don't have enough cash for marketing of the product but you want it to reach the public in a big way. What if you have someone to sell it for you? You will find some people who are willing to finance your marketing and who are experts in such things. These people don't charge anything upfront, to market the product for you through Internet.

Then, whenever they make a sale of your product, you pay them a large part of the profit. This is a win-win scenario for all parties involved. You get to sell your product to the masses and you don't have to come up with any money out of your pocket for advertising. The affiliate gets to leverage their skills in internet marketing or their contacts to make sales for you. Then they make a good percentage of the profits without having to develop their own products. Even the customers win, because they get access to some of the best products that they might have never heard of otherwise.

The ease with which money is made makes affiliate marketing a favourite method. This method makes it possible for people to not only sell other peoples product from their homes but also make profit in the process. If the affiliates have good knowledge about their job, they can earn a comfortable amount without putting in too much of effort.

Over a period of time, many affiliates develop a huge email list by publishing an e-zine or website. Now whenever they have to promote a product, they just send an email to the people on the list. Some people in the list end up buying the product and the affiliate make money in the process without having spent a penny.

For the affiliates who don't have any such list, there are other methods available for sale. Some of them place ads on Google Adwords and this enables them to get prospective buyers to their websites. This method may cost some money but the returns i.e. the share of the profit on sale of the product can make them a lot of money. Some even use the article marketing, forum posting, and classified ads to sell products. These are free forms of advertising.

Overall, affiliates and the producers that they represent have a lot to gain from the system. If the procedure is done correctly, everyone stands to gain a lot of money from the process.

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